Kyiv, 18 April 2000 (RFE/RL) - Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin says he wants to raise relations with Ukraine, following talks today in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. "The level of the relationship between our peoples, the mixing between Russians and Ukrainians that took place during centuries doesn't leave us any other choice but one: to consider the relationship between our two states as the closest, warm and strategic."
Kuchma said Putin's visit will serve as "serious groundwork for a strategic partnership."